Qld election 2024 leaders debate LIVE updates: Steven Miles, David Crisafulli go head-to-head | Leaders quizzed on cost-of-living, youth crime and health

The leaders have been asked about political scare campaigns.

Steven Miles says “sometimes scare campaigns can be true”.

“There are many people who still approach me in the street and say ‘I got Newman-ed’,” he said, in reference to the public servants sacked during Campbell Newman’s years as premier.

David Crisafulli, who earlier spent some time talking about his family’s sugar farm, says the scare campaigns had been “disappointing”.

Crisafulli said a number of things that were being said were categorically untrue and divisive.

“I’m going to choose hope over fear,” Crisafulli said, prompting Miles to express some doubt about that.

Sofie Formica has asked Steven Miles if he’s a better premier than Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Miles says he knows he’s a “very different kind of leader” and Queenslanders would have a chance to judge that on October 26.

Formica has followed up to say Palaszczuk was pushed out amid disastrous polling. If Miles wasn’t better, what does that say to Queenslanders?

“I spent 10 months showing Queenslanders the kind of premier I would be if I had the chance to lead for four years,” Miles said.

“There is a difference between being a member of a team and being the leader, being the premier.”

Opposition leader David Crisafulli says the Australian Medical Association says the patient tax “which comes in after the election” and will generate $100 million per year will result in the “death of bulk billing”, close surgeries and put more pressure on hospitals.

Steven Miles says there’s “no such thing as a patient tax”.

“It’s something that you’ve made up,” he says.

And we’re back with more from “The Great Debate” with our Great Blog.

Now the leaders are questioning each other.

Premier Steven Miles says Labor has released its costings before the election campaign, and the LNP has made lots of expensive promises. He wants to know how the LNP will fund its promises before early voting opens.

Crisafulli says his plans are fully funded and costed.

Steven Miles and David Crisafulli.Credit: Dan Peled / Brisbane Times

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Tim Arvier wants more specifics from David Crisafulli about how he’s going to fix the performance of the health system.

David Crisafulli says he wants to see new data, and Steven Miles says it’s been released and is now quietly mentioning some percentages.

The excellent BT editor Sean Parnell, who will no doubt read back over this blog later when he’s not on live TV, has asked whether the health system is in better or worse shape since 2015.

Miles has talked up the health system, while Crisafulli has a different view and says “categorically” the health system is in a worse position.

David Crisafulli voted against the government’s voluntary assisted dying laws when they went before Parliament, and Tim Arvier has asked David Crisafulli about whether he’d change the laws.

Crisafulli says he doesn’t have plans to change them, prompting Premier Steven Miles to interject, saying “these are the kind of weasel words we get from David”.

Crisafulli then insisted it would “not happen”, prompting Miles to claim the LNP leader couldn’t guarantee that, and ask whether he’d have a conscience vote, and whether his views had changed on voluntary euthanasia.

“It is not part of our plan, it will not happen,” Crisafulli said, then repeatedly trying to put an end to it. “Not happening.”

Sofie Formica has raised David Crisafulli’s “adult time for adult crime” policy and asked about minimum mandatory sentences for repeat youth offenders.

“I won’t rule it out into the future... but our first tranche of laws will make a difference,” he says.

BT editor Sean Parnell says people are scared by the level of crime they’re seeing in the community but they’re also “unsettled by the constant debate over crime and over laws”.

Premier Steven Miles says it’s a complex problem.

But David Crisafulli has accused Miles’ heart of not being in it.

“I have more than a slogan,” Miles snapped back.

Moderator by Melissa Downes has reminded us the leaders are supposed to have 60 seconds to answer, but there’s been a bit of back and forth.

Steven Miles (right), and Opposition David Crisafulli.Credit: Dan Peled

Opposition leader David Crisafulli has just promised to quit if he can’t reduce victim numbers if he wins the state election this month.

Nine News state political reporter Tim Arvier said David Crisafulli had promised crime would be lower under the LNP and there’d be fewer victims year-on-year. Arvier asked Criasfulli if he’ll resign as premier if he fails to do that.

“You bet,” Crisafulli said.

Crisafulli seems to have walked back his promise a little though, when asked for a date, saying there’d be another election in four years.

“If there aren’t fewer victims though, you won’t be seeing me,” Crisafulli said.

Youth crime has been a persistent theme in Queensland politics.

Moderator Melissa Downes points out that when Steven Miles became Premier he got round-the-clock security. She wants to know if he’s had a conversation with your children about what happens when someone breaks into his house.

Miles says it’s always important to talk to your kids about personal safety. “Not a single chat, but a fairly continuous conversation,” he says.